TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Feb 22, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court will not consider when criminal defense attorneys are obligated to start negotiating plea deals for their client, Bloomberg Law reports. The justices decided yesterday not to hear a Florida man’s claim that his attorney failed to adequately advise him on his plea. Quartavious Davis chose to plead not guilty. He was convicted and sentenced to 159 years for seven armed robberies. His co-defendants pleaded guilty and got lighter sentences. In a dissenting opinion, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor wrote that they would have heard the case, saying it was “a clear opportunity … to resolve a circuit split regarding whether having an actual plea offer is an indispensable prerequisite to making the necessary showing of prejudice.”